Nonetheless, he knew his duty. And part of that was maintaining a positive, can-do attitude. He was only letting slip his deepest, darkest doubts to the one person who knew everything about him. And that was Sergeant Atwell. The two of them huddled up against the bulkhead just a few meters from their half of the reserve militia force: fifty armed and armored sailors, who had received not quite a full day of instruction – and most of whom, before that, hadn’t fired a weapon since boot camp.
Thirty meters aft of them, in the same cavernous compartment, were the other fifty members of the reserve – as well as the two MARSOC Marines who would lead them.
Up above, all around them in fact, the bulkheads, the overhead, and the deck shook and rumbled with the fury of the unrelenting assault and battle taking place outside. It was like being locked in the trunk of a car in a high-speed chase and shootout – and knowing that, very soon, the trunk would pop open. And it would be their turn, to get ejected into the shootout.
The tension was horrendous. Which partially accounted for Raible’s confession.
Sergeant Atwell nodded at him sympathetically. He knew he needed to hear out the concerns of the younger Marine. But he also had to get the man’s head back where it belonged. Because they were about to get into the game. And Atwell was pretty sure it was going to be the Super Bowl of their military careers – with no next season for whoever lost. And definitely no TV timeouts.
This was the real deal.
Atwell considered his words carefully. He didn’t even bother pointing out that the destroyer, which was built to house 380 officers and men, couldn’t remotely accommodate anything like an additional 2,400, which was how many the flat-top currently held, even at half strength. Hell, the destroyer probably couldn’t even physically hold that many. But, anyway, the bigger point was, well, bigger.
“It’s not just the twenty-four-hundred of us on this ship,” he said, holding his buddy’s eye calmly and steadily. “We are the vanguard of fifty million. The last fifty million of us. In the world. And if this ship goes down, what do you think’s going to happen to their chances?”
Raible nodded and exhaled. “They’ll go down.”
“They’ll go way down. Never forget: we are fighting for everyone.” He grabbed Raible’s shoulder with his right hand and squeezed. “Anyway, always was it thus. We fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.” It was true. This fact hadn’t really changed.
It had just gotten more extreme, more desperate.
Both Marines turned now to face their militia. Both of them were totally tooled up in full battle rattle – plate carriers and tactical vests, helmets, knee pads, big .45 pistols in drop-leg holsters with spare mags, SCAR-L assault rifles hanging on tactical slings, and vest pouches bulging with sixteen rifle magazines apiece. Each also had a fat satchel charge slung over his back – for use when things were darkest, or most parlous, or the situation perhaps irretrievable.
Much more important than any weapons or gear, though, was that they were exquisitely trained and skilled – and, most critically, they had been selected, ultimately, for the same trait that defined all special operators.
Resolve.
They would never quit, they would never falter, they would never give in, and they would die giving their last full measure, to the greatest of their exceptional abilities. And today they would also be leading these fifty men and women, who were not Marines, and were nothing like special operators. And their obligations to them were equally solemn – more so, if anything. As the Bible had it: the greatest among you shall be your servant.
Like all great leaders, they were foremost the servants of the men and women they led.
And it was now that they got word. The other force further down began filing onto the giant starboard elevator. This would lift them up to the level of the flight deck, where they would take their places mounting a final defense around the edge of the hole, holding off the endless masses of marauding dead pouring across the deck. But even they were not the last-ditch defense.
That honor went to Atwell and Raible and their fifty – because they were actually going into the hole. In planning, it had become clear that only so much could be done to hold off the rising tide of dead from up on deck. Men were needed down in it – to battle those coming up from the ocean – and to fight them hand-to-hand, if need be.
Atwell leading the way, Raible pulling up the rear, this second reserve force began their two-minute trot up ladders and through passageways, which would take them to the hatch leading out to the half-destroyed area of the ship that made up the hole.
And the hatch they would use was the last one that had not already been welded shut, or if too deformed for that barricaded in some way.
But there was one aspect of the plan that only the two Marines knew: that final hatch was going to be welded shut behind them. Surely some, maybe most, of the sailors, had they known, would have volunteered anyway for what was probably a suicide mission. But too much hung on this operation. Drake had chosen to sacrifice honesty on the altar of survival. Just as he was choosing to sacrifice, if necessary, these fifty to save the other 2,400.
And to save the ship.
However… they were still only halfway to their position, still filing down a long passageway, when all hell broke loose up top.
Something was not going to plan.
* * *
The pilot of the other Seahawk was clearly a badass of the first rank as well.
Because when the Murphy’s guns went down for good, and the levee broke at the ramparts, he (or she, Handon couldn’t see and didn’t know) reacted instantly – climbing up from where they were battling the pile at the hole, and in one smooth and immensely powerful swoop pointed their nose for the new disaster at the prow.
And with no hesitation, and in quick sequence, the helo released all four of its AGM-114 Hellfire missiles mounted on their two protruding weapons hardpoints. One after another these blasted off their rails in long jets of flame and trails of pale smoke, impacting the ramparts nearly in the same instant they were launched.
A 106-pound air-to-surface missile, with a shape-charged warhead packing a five-million-pound-per-square-inch impact, the Hellfire may be the best and most aptly named weapon in military history. Virtually the entire front edge of the flight deck disappeared in a rolling ball of fire and smoke that rose toward the heavens, even as flames and debris arced off into open air a hundred meters out in front of the ship. The roar was absolutely pummeling. Virtually every Marine and sailor fighting on the deck either fell or cowered down, covering their ears and eyes with gloved hands.
The Alpha operators were the only exceptions – they’d had enough danger-close dropped on their heads to know not to react. Usually, if you didn’t have advance warning, once the booms happened it was too late to cover up. Better to maintain posture and situational awareness.
When all of the flame and most of the smoke cleared, the ramparts were simply gone.
And so were thousands of Zulus. The whole top of the pile had been blown off. As had much of the front lip of the flight deck. But that was, obviously, the least of their problems.
Handon rose from his crouch and started urging the militia back into their lines and up into shooting postures. Because that missile strike had bought them, at most, a couple of minutes. Every corpse that had been killed would quickly be replaced, world without end. And the living were going to have to do something about it.
And when the smoke cleared, the other thing Handon saw was the Seahawk taking up a hover over the foredeck, its door gunner hammering away at the reconstituting ranks of attackers that climbed back up – and none of whom were going to have to climb over the rampart this time. Handon mentally heaped honor on the pilots and crew of that helo. They were clearly brave sons of bitches, not to mention super-skilled at their jobs, and also unflappable under horrendous pressure.
But that door gunner was also only going to help a little, and only temporarily. And
even as Handon thought this, the minigun stopped – jammed, overheated, or (most likely) empty.
Handon looked around him in all directions. The air was still hazy from the gases and particulate matter of the explosions, and his ears still rang, as everyone’s did. The surviving sailors were getting back into their lines, and re-engaging with the thickening ranks of the dead. Handon squinted out toward the front of the boat.
Coulson grabbed him from behind, his hand pressed to his ear again. “Reserve force are one mike out!” he shouted. By this point, the front of the deck was already heaving with dead again, dozens of them coming in fast – then scores, then hundreds. Nothing fazed them, nothing but brainstem-death or dismemberment slowed them down. Handon had to give it to them. They were the most dedicated and mission-focused force he’d ever fought.
Handon pushed his brain, trying hard to think ahead. They were still going to have to break contact somehow, and displace to the rear, leaving the hole in the hands of the reserve force. And there was no possibility of doing so without creating some more breathing room – a lot more. He squinted out ahead again and thought: If one huge bang is good, two are better. But the timing had to be perfect.
Rifle up and blazing away again, Coulson shouted, “Thirty seconds!”
Handon pushed the man’s barrel down with his hand, leaned in, and shouted. “Remember how we took Ammo City?”
“Who could forget!”
“Well, I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to take it again!” Handon patted the two grenades left on his webbing. “May as well get some last use out of it!”
Coulson nodded. “Okay! But we gotta get the Seahawk out first!”
“Got direct comms?”
“Negative! Have to go through CIC!”
But there was no time, and Handon was already climbing up onto the forklift. The Seahawk was holding position, and the pilot wasn’t looking his way. Handon pulled his rifle into his shoulder and triggered off two rounds into the bulletproof cockpit glass, right beside the pilot’s face. She – hell, it was a she – twisted her neck in his direction, face showing alarm. Handon dropped the rifle on its sling and raised both hands straight in the air – the standard aircraft marshalling signal for “Assume guidance.” He could see the pilot nod twice behind the glass. He made a circular motion with his raised right hand, then a throwing motion out toward the ocean.
This was the standard signal for, basically, “Get the fuck out.”
The Seahawk did exactly that, nose dropping and accelerating away from the carrier like a really badass bat out of some especially unpleasant hell.
Handon palmed his two grenades, and pulled the pins. A glance down told him Coulson was doing the same – plus frantically radioing his team to get the militia covered up.
It was a long, precise throw they had to make from their lines out to Ammo City.
All four grenades arced high and long through the air, two and then two more.
All four settled, clattered, and skidded right into the aisles of stacked ordnance.
Four perfect throws.
Handon leapt off the back of the forklift.
To either side of it, sailors dove for cover.
The rippling wave of thrumming, devastating, pummeling explosions that followed made the Hellfire missile strike look like three M80s and a Roman Candle.
It almost took the prow of the USS John F. Kennedy clean off.
World on Fire
Below Decks on the JFK
Fick had lamentably lost track of the security card to their stores and weapons room somewhere along the line. He thought maybe it was back in his berth. And he had no plans to burn more time swinging by there. He also no longer had his “masterkey” – the shotgun slung under his M16, which opened all known locks. But the stores hatch came open quickly enough from a pair of fat .45 rounds from his pistol.
“Tool up,” he said, swinging inside and hitting the lights. “And do it fast.” It was like a toy store for spec-ops hard-hitters – a rack of spare SCAR rifles, another one of M4s, rucks and belts and plate carriers and tactical vests. Spare uniform and boots. And, mainly, ammo and grenades – though Fick noted there was a hell of a lot less of that than when he’d last been in there.
It was just another sign that his Marines up top were in the fight of their lives.
Fick wasted no time in grabbing a rifle, filling his mag pouches, and moving out again. Graybeard and Brady hustled right behind him. The gunshot wound to Brady’s arm didn’t seem to slow him down. But that was only the worst and most visible of the wounds all of them were fighting through.
Fick clicked on the tactical light beneath the barrel of his new M4 carbine. It was damned dark down here – either because the vessel and crew were at battle stations or, more likely, because they were running out of power. With his rifle to his shoulder, Fick patrolled forward down the narrow companionway, while stealing a look at the notepad, now in his left hand, where he’d scribbled the frame and compartment numbers Drake wanted them to check.
In less than a minute, they were at the first one – the Auxiliary Machine Space, down on the Third Deck, and close to the stern. Not only were there no dead there – there were also no living. “C’mon,” Fick grunted, moving his reduced team out again. Next stop was forward and one level up – Ship’s Heavy Weapons Armory. At least this was guarded, as it needed to be.
Spotting the guard before the guard spotted him, Fick took the precaution of yelling, “Friendlies! Comin‘ in!”
“Hey, Gunny,” the young man said, lowering his M4. “You’re back.” The guy seemed to recognize him, though it didn’t go the other way. As acting MARSOC commander, Fick had a higher profile. And he didn’t have time to waste catching up anyway.
“You got any dead guys around here?” Fick peeked inside the big compartment. There was another dude there, also armed, and listening to a radio headset.
“Not sure, Gunny, if I’m honest. Thought we saw a figure way down the passageway, moving damned strangely.”
Fick cradled his rifle. “You check it out?”
“Nah. We’re not supposed to leave our stations. We shouted for him to stop, and then phoned it in to the station he looked like he was headed toward. Also to CIC.”
“Okay,” Fick said. “Stay put.”
And he moved his guys out again.
* * *
Reyes lay still, breathing peacefully, and listening to the battle up top. There was a hell of a lot of aircraft carrier between him and the fight. But still he could make out a thin buzz of small-arms fire. This was punctuated by peaceful little cottony whumps, which were grenades. At one point the room shook, four times in a row, which Reyes took a guess and figured might be air-to-ground missiles of some sort.
He hated missing the battle, but he was okay lying here for the moment. The doctor who’d examined him couldn’t really improve on Predator’s bandages – Pred was a Tier-1 guy, which meant he might actually have more medical qualifications than the doctor, at least in trauma and battlefield medicine. Unfortunately, Reyes admitted to the doc that he’d been blown up, and now she wasn’t going to let him go until they MRI’d his head. Reyes figured if his brain were hemorrhaging he’d have died by now. But he could still conceivably have a skull fracture. So he just lay still and listened to the battle buzzing around and above him.
Come to notice it, he could also feel the room around him swaying very slightly, from side to side. Which was an amazing thing to feel on a ship that big – 110,000 tons of displacement generally meant total immunity from stormy seas. And this one also had a bilge keel on each side, to prevent rolling. Reyes had to assume that whatever was tottering the Kennedy wasn’t the sea, and it wasn’t the foul weather.
He removed his gaze from the ceiling to the two portholes in the double-width hatch that led to the outside companionway, and also ran his thumb over the safety on his holstered side arm. This was the best way to make himself useful right now. Being vigilant.
And Reyes couldn’t even see what had caused that.
* * *
It was much the same at the next station Fick and his team checked out.
“Any dead here?” he asked.
“We thought we heard a scream, Gunny.”
“A scream.”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d it come from?”
“Down here? Hard to tell.”
Fick smiled tightly, then turned away to face Graybeard and Brady. “Okay, this is bullshit. I’m not gonna be the Inspector Clouseau of this goddamned ship. And these guys have got it in hand.” He paused and considered for one more second. “Fuck it, we’re going topside. C’mon – we’ll spot-check a couple more frames on our way to the island. And then we’ll come out fighting from there.”
* * *
Reyes was just about to attempt standing up, to go out to the companionway and check things out – when two gunshots erupted, followed by what sounded like an abbreviated scream. He blinked once, slowly, as the following thought hit him:
They’ve gotten around behind the team’s sweep.
And then the hospital hatch banged open. Behind it were three of them. One lunged straight at Reyes, who was prone on the examination table closest to the door. He had nowhere to go but over – so he simply rolled himself off the other side, hitting the deck hard, his chunky pistol appearing in his hand. From there, he had a look at much of the hospital behind him – and its staff reacting to the violent incursion.
He actually saw surgeons picking up scalpels. That was quality.
He also had no idea what had happened to the two armed guards – they were suddenly MIA.
Arisen, Book Five - EXODUS Page 28
